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How fast should we fall in love?

‘It is terribly easy to love someone one hardly knows. How charming, polite and box-fresh they seem’

Hannah Betts

March 23 2013, 11:06am, The Times

News from the People Who Take an Interest in This Sort of Thing – on this occasion, YouGov as commissioned by eHarmony, that bastion of internet dating for the middle-aged and middlebrow. Men issue declarations of love significantly speedier than women: an average of 88 days to the fair sex’s 134. Moreover, 39 per cent of chaps proffer “I love you” within the first month of seeing someone; 23 per cent of women. Britain, it would appear, is in the grip of an epidemic of premature ejaculation.

One’s first response to such information is: “Who are these mooks?” Second: “Actually, this makes perfect sense.” A flood of love is commonly chemically confused with the first flush of sex. Besides, it is terribly easy to love…